


Checkmate

by lears_daughter



Category: X-Men Movieverse
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-25
Updated: 2010-02-25
Packaged: 2017-10-07 13:32:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lears_daughter/pseuds/lears_daughter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU of the end of X-Men: The Last Stand. Magneto and Rogue, though on opposite sides in a war, were both given the cure against their will. They cross paths during their recovery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Checkmate

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men.

Magneto was enjoying himself by wildly tossing automobiles hither and thither and generally dismaying his enemy, the X-Men. In the past, he had always been a bit cautious about hurting those that he knew Charles held very dear, particular Cyclops, Storm, and Jean Grey. Well, now Charles was dead and so was Cyclops, and dear Jean, or the Phoenix that was controlling her, had finally made the wise decision to come to the dark side. He almost regretted that the original X-Men, who had been a surprisingly tenacious and formidable foe, had been winnowed down to Storm, a powerful force but no leader, the Wolverine, and a couple of children who had apparently confused the jet for a school bus. Almost, but not quite.

He allowed himself a moment to enjoy the fight between Pyro and Iceman -- hardly an epic battle, but they would both improve with time, he hoped -- and that was when it happened. He stiffened and instinctively tried to move away when a hand clamped onto his ankle, sliding up his pants leg to latch onto the skin above his sock, but found as his power and energy were siphoned away that he had little control over his own body. Desperately, he reached out with his senses, searching for any metal on his attacker with which to drag her away from him, but she was wearing none. Smart girl.

In a last-ditch moment of desperation, he used what was left of his power to fling a metal beam in her direction. She deflected it effortlessly using the skill and power she had absorbed from him, but her distraction was enough to allow him to pull himself away from her grasp, gasping and trembling but in control of himself once more. He stared at the girl, Rogue of course, feeling the wild pounding of his heart and a surge of admiration and appreciation coursing through his veins at the audaciousness of this young woman, who would dare to defy him again. He was angry, naturally, that she had come along to disrupt his plans, but the very fact of her being there when he had been told that she had taken the cure raised her immeasurably in his estimation.

"Rogue!" he heard Wolverine cry, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the dismayed expression on the man's face. So, she had not been intended as the secret weapon, then. He hadn't thought so -- it wasn't the kind of tactic Charles would have taught -- but the fact that Rogue was there apparently unbeknownst to her guardians was intriguing.

"Hey sugar!" she called cheerfully in return, her expression at odds with her voice as she warily eyed Magneto, pushing a strand of white hair behind her ear when it fell from her ponytail into her face. "Did ya miss me?"

Whatever reply Wolverine might have made was cut off when he turned to face another of Magneto's men as he was attacked.

Magneto stretched out his senses and frowned when he felt the limitations on his slowly returning gift. As it was, Rogue was probably more powerful in her control over metal than he was.

"It's a pleasure to see you again, my dear," he told her patronizingly, trying to prolong the conversation to allow himself time to recoup. "I'm ever so pleased that you decided against taking the cure."

She flashed him a very attractive smile -- although he would never admit to having found it to be so -- and shot back, "I'm afraid it ain't such a pleasure to see you again, Magneto, since apparently you still haven't learned your lesson about trying to force people to revere us." With a flick of her wrist she sent a hubcap flying through the air towards him which he effortlessly deflected, dodging out of the way just in case.

"You know you can't defeat me using my own powers," he told her arrogantly, flinging a bit of broken railing in her direction. He knew he should be worrying about the mutant boy who held the secret to the cure for mutancy and about the state of his own forces, but at the moment he found himself strangely caught up in this contest between himself and the much younger girl. He laughed when she blocked the railing and tossed it to the side, a look of intense concentration on her face.

"You forget that I know ya as well as you know yourself," she corrected pushing her hand forward to halt the forward progress of a car he was trying to throw at her. It crashed to the ground with a loud crunching sound. "I know your strategy -- " she blocked another car " -- and I know your limits."

"You think an old man can't pick up a few tricks?" he asked, one eyebrow cocked, as he subtly maneuvered a metal wire around behind her to garrote her. He was more than mildly impressed when she flattened it to the ground before it could injure her.

"I never called you old," she said. She flashed him another grin, and he could tell that she was reveling in the use of her powers, something she was undoubtedly often denied of back at Charles' school. "Just predictable."

Astonishingly, he couldn't help but smile back at her -- more of a baring of the teeth, really, but it was attractive and conveyed humor nonetheless. There was definitely something thrilling about exercising his powers this way, against perhaps the one person who could match him blow for blow in such a fight. The battle between them had really ceased to be about injuring one another and had become much more focused on using their powers in the most freeing way possible. Which was part of the reason why Magneto was so upset by what happened next.

It was as he was distracted as he was in the process of levitating a car over Rogue's head and she was doing her best to push it away with the limited power remaining to her by this time that the Beast, a large and rather hairy blue man, pounced onto him, causing a strange sharp pain in his shoulder. It was only after the man had bounded away that Magneto's eyes caught the four small darts pressed into his skin, the poison that would destroy Magneto and leave only Erik. In horror, he slumped onto his back, staring at the sky in utter devastation. "What have I done?" he whispered to himself.

Despite his focus on his own misfortune, his eyes were drawn to the still-hovering car, and to the girl beneath it, who was trembling with the effort of keeping it from dropping on her, too focused on holding the car up to move out from under it. Pulling himself ponderously to his feet, pushed by some unconscious force, Erik moved towards her, intending to push her out of the way of the large object. He was maybe thirty feet from her when the sound of rubble shifting caught his attention, and he turned just in time to see a huge, burly soldier push his way out from under some fallen stone, catch sight of Rogue, who from this angle appeared to be levitating the car rather than repelling it, take aim with his cure gun, and fire.

Rogue only had time to let out a small cry of surprise as the power of her own mutation and Magneto's abruptly deserted her and the car fell heavily from the sky to crash down on her young body.

***

If he had still had his powers, he would have sensed the metal in her crutches from some distance away. As it was, only the sound of the squeaks they made as they pressed against the concrete sidewalk alerted him to her presence. He looked up with a frown from the one-sided chess game he had been playing, in which he moved the pieces on his side according to his strategy and on the other side attempted to play as Charles would have. The game was going badly -- he was losing even though Charles was playing quite badly, since he found himself unwilling to take most of Charles' pieces -- but even so, it was his game and he didn't appreciate someone coming to butt in.

The angry words that were forming on his tongue broke off, however, when he saw who the intruder was. She looked much the same as she had seven weeks ago at Alcatraz: the same distinctive shock of white hair -- his gift to her from Liberty Island -- the same pretty face and brown eyes, but she was slightly thinner. The bruises from that night had faded and vanished, but it appeared that the repercussions from her most serious injury, the severely broken leg that had come as a result of the unpleasant encounter with the flying car, would be longer lasting, if the crutches were any indication.

"Rogue," he acknowledged her curtly, disliking the fact that she apparently felt the need to remind him of his various failures by forcing her presence upon him. "Or is it Marie now?"

"It's still Rogue," she replied, maneuvering herself carefully with the crutches so that she ended up sitting in the chair across the chess table from him, her injured leg stretched out in front of her, held stiff by the long cast that covered it almost entirely. She wore an NYU t-shirt that swamped her thin frame, making her look even smaller than she actually was. "And are you still going by 'Magneto,' or is it just Erik now?" she asked in return.

"I believe Mr. Lensherr would be the more appropriate form of address," he told her, frowning when she shook her head.

"I have you in my head," she reminded him pointedly, tapping one ungloved finger against the side of her head. He started; he had known, of course, that she too had lost her powers, but seeing her without gloves was a striking reminder. "I'm sorry, but you ain't going to get no formal address from me." She began to calmly and competently rearrange the chess pieces on the board into their starting positions.

"What are you doing?" he demanded roughly. He wished she would leave and felt half-inclined to depart himself; but then, he had sat down at this table first, and he was damned if he was going to run away just because she had come along. He was confused by her behavior, by her no-nonsense tone, by the fact that she was willingly spending any time at all with him when by all rights she should either hate him or be in such terror of him that she would avoid him at all costs. This brisk entry into his new, hated life, this casual treatment of him as if they were friends and not bitter enemies, was disturbing and left him entirely uneasy.

"What does it look like?" she asked impudently, looking back at him over the rows of chess pieces with the equanimity he was beginning to expect from her.

"It looks like you're disturbing my well-earned solitude and forcing me to endure your unwelcome presence," he snapped. Even as he spoke, he moved a white pawn forward two spaces. _In chess, the pawns go first_.

She moved in turn. "You can't fool me, you know, Erik," she said calmly. "You've never taken defeat well, and you've always despised humans, despite the fact that your own parents were human. To suddenly be forced to become one can't be easy for you."

He frowned at her. "Of course it isn't easy for me -- can you claim that it's any easier for you? Apparently you decided against taking the cure after you had convinced yourself to do so; what changed your mind?"

She hesitated, then shrugged sheepishly. "I was actually in line waiting my turn when my parents called me on my cell phone. It was the first time they had contacted me since they evicted me from the house with nothing but the clothes on my back and a bruise on my face."

When she paused, he prompted, "What did they say when they called you?"

She smiled bitterly. "They told me that they still loved me, and that if I got the cure they would welcome me back with open arms."

"And what did you do in response?"

"I said several unflattering things, hung up on them, got out of line, and stowed away on the X-Men's jet. The rest you know."

"Why did you react that way, do you think?"

She sighed in resignation. "Because even if your methods are wrong and your past experiences have scarred you beyond healing, when it comes to predicting human behavior you're right on the money. It's one thing for me to want to be like everyone else, and quite another for everyone else to insist that I be just like them. If I were given the choice to take the cure again, I would make my decision based on what I wanted to do for myself, not on what anyone else wanted. Unfortunately, my choice was taken away from me after I made it." She flexed her hands, eyeing her bare fingers as if they were some dangerous foreign instruments that she didn't know quite what to do with.

Erik pursed his lips. "Ironic how things turn out, isn't it. I go out planning to destroy the cure and you defy me planning to save the cure, but not to take it yourself, and yet here we both are, human and weak, pining over the past."

Rogue glared at him. "I may be human now, Erik, but I ain't weak, whatever you want to call yourself. My mutation may have defined what I could do, but it didn't define who I was. I'm still Rogue even if I'm not a mutant; I still go to NYU even if I don't have to take correspondence courses any more; I'm still active even if it'll be a long time before I can walk without some kind of aid. But you -- you lose your powers and suddenly you acquiesce, as if because they landed a blow against you you've lost all reason to exist? Are you going to spend the rest of your life in front of this chess table, waiting for the opponents of the past who will never return?"

He grimaced morosely at the chess table, unwilling to respond to her words for a long time. Finally, he lifted his eyes to meet hers. "My cause was what I lived for for so long, Rogue," he said quietly. "I'll understand if you can't understand that, but without my powers I'm just an old man with no friends, no family, nothing to care about."

She watched him as he spoke, and he was disturbed to see her expression shift from anger to pity. She looked down at the chess pieces in front of her, then shifted her bishop several spots forward and to the right. "Checkmate," she said. She looked him in the eye. "You should have taken my queen three moves back; before what happened at Alcatraz, you would have. Now, you let me beat you with your own strategy." Shaking her head, she carefully rose from her seat, using her crutches to hold herself up. Standing like this, with him sitting before her, she towered over him. "I'm going now," she told him severely. "I'll be back in a week. I hope you're gone by then."

As she laboriously walked away from him, he watched her go. Only when she was out of eyesight did he drop his gaze to his defeated king. With one long finger he knocked it over, expelling a sigh and looking forward with something like happiness to the thought of seeing her again the following week.

***

Rather to his surprise, Erik found a new sense of purpose after Rogue's interruption of his calm, depressing existence. That isn't to say, of course, that he stopped moping and brooding about his new lot in life, but he did move himself out of the seedy motel he'd been staying in and into a nice apartment, and he even started cooking his own meals again rather than ordering them from a restaurant. By the following Thursday, he was feeling almost -- to use the phrase -- human again, which was a massive improvement from how he had felt before.  

He tried to tell himself that he wasn't anxiously awaiting her arrival that evening, but when she did come it was to find her chair pulled out for her and the chess pieces lined up waiting for her to command them. She raised an eyebrow at him, then awkwardly maneuvered herself into her seat.

***

Some days, they didn't talk at all. They were content, the older man and younger woman, to play a game that could span several hours without a single word passing between them other than "check" or "checkmate." On those days, one or the other of them wore a forbidding expression on their face, and the other was happy enough to leave that expression unchallenged. Other days, the game could last even longer as they talked to each other about inconsequential things, or chose to unburden their souls to each other.  

Once, for example, four weeks after Rogue first claimed her seat in Central Park, Erik eyed her up and down, then said severely, "You are getting thinner every time I see you, my dear. It is getting to be quite unhealthy."

She shrugged. "I have scholarships that cover most of my tuition, but I have to provide living expenses myself. Plus, I've been working to pay back what I owe to Xavier's that they loaned me when I left…It's hard getting any kind of job even on campus with this leg, so I make due with what I can get." She patted her cast lightly. He checkmated her the next move.

Even though there was no accusation in her words or tone, Erik couldn't help but feel a sense of shame at having caused her injury. He said nothing at the time, but the following week he brought a paper bag with a sandwich and chips to the park with him and watched in satisfaction as she consumed it ravenously. He brought two sandwiches and chips with him every week after that.

Another time, two months into their strange rendezvous, Rogue abruptly asked, "What do you do with the rest of your time, when you're not here playing chess?"

He refused to look her in the eyes, aware of how inadequate his answer sounded. He reflected for a moment on how their roles had changed since their mutations were suppressed, that rather than being his inferior or even equal Rogue sometimes took a dominant role in their relationship. "I read a great deal, keep up on the news, that sort of thing. I enjoy taking long walks."

She stared at him incredulously, as if he'd suddenly grown three heads or started advocating the superiority of humans over mutants. "That's it? Once one of the most powerful mutants in the world, now you spend your days doing nothing?"

He grew defensive. "What do you do with your time that's so much better, Rogue?" he asked. What he really wanted to ask was, "What do you expect me to do? Do you expect me to act as if nothing happened, as if I were still Magneto rather than this pathetic shell you see in front of you?" These were questions he'd asked himself often enough but didn't quite dare to ask aloud.

"I take a more than full load at NYU to catch up on the classes I've missed the past few years due to various upheavals in my life. I work at one of the school cafeterias to help pay the bills. I go to physical therapy to work on my leg." She rubbed her sore leg, which by this time was out of a cast and aided only by a cane. "Sometimes I call Xavier's to check in and to find out how everyone there is doing."

"Inquiring after your boyfriend?" he asked snidely, then wondered why he'd asked.

"My boyfriend?" she repeated. "Oh, you mean Bobby? We broke up after Alcatraz."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Suddenly I wasn't untouchable enough for him, and I realized that he was too young for me."

"How so?" he inquired, hating himself for becoming so interested in her love life.

"Physically, I'm twenty-one years old," she replied. "Mentally, though, I'm much older. I mean, even though I've been cured I still have all your memories in my head, mixed up with Logan's and Bobby's and some from a couple of guys I met when I was on the run. That's a lot of years of combined experience."

"I'll bet," he murmured. He looked her in the eye. "Is that why you left Charles' school? Because of Bobby?"

"Hardly," she said. "No, it was more than just boy troubles. I just didn't fit there any more. Xavier would have wanted me to stay, but now he was dead. Cyclops would have offered sound advice and leadership, but he was dead, too. Storm was focused on the day-to-day workings of the school, and she could never look at me quite the same now that I wasn't a mutant any more. Add to that the fact that Bobby and I broke up and that Logan took off because of Jean's death, and there wasn't much reason for me to stay there any more."

"Yes, well, the Brotherhood wasn't too keen on having a leader who wasn't a mutant, so I didn't bother returning to them just to be expelled," Erik told her, trying to comfort her as best as he knew how.

She smiled faintly at him, appreciative of the gesture. "So here we both are, outcasts from both parts of society trying to adapt to a new lifestyle we never wanted."

"Here we are," he agreed softly.

She glanced down at the board, played a move he often made himself. "Checkmate."

***

Erik and Rogue discovered that their powers were returning on the same day, but in very different situations. Erik was cooking himself dinner in his apartment before going to meet Rogue in their usual spot in the park when a skillet had come to his unconscious mental command. At first, he was afraid that he had imagined it, and he had dropped it back onto the table and stared at it for several long minutes, willing it to come to him again and prove that he wasn't going mad. Just when he was beginning to think that it really had been a trick of his imagination, the skillet twitched slightly. It wasn't much, and his control was incredibly weak, but it was a beginning. He spent the entire night and long into the next morning practicing with his newly-returned skill. It would not be until noon the next day that he remembered the forgotten meeting.  

It was the first Thursday evening that he missed in three months. Rogue sat helplessly at their usual table for half an hour before finally giving up and heading slowly back towards the bus stop that would take her back to school. She walked very slowly, that night being the first night she was attempting to walk any appreciable distance without an aid of any kind. Her limp was distinct even in the fading light, and was probably what prompted the man to attack her.

He came out of nowhere as she was passing through a particularly shady bit of path, forcing her against a tree with cruel gloved fingers curling around her throat and the other hand menacing her with a knife. She tried to cry out but he pressed his hand over her mouth, muffling any noise she might choose to make. She could make out his face clearly in the dark, his lustful dark eyes and pointed features seeming to cleave the night and instilling in her a fear the likes of which she had never felt before. She had been attacked by men with similar intentions before when she was on the run, but back then she had never been so helpless. Now, with her bad leg and lack of powers, she was easy prey to her attacker.

Using his knife to continue threatening her, he dragged her into a small cluster of trees where they would be easily hidden from view, then shoved her against another tree, hard enough that she would have bruises on her back. He used his free hand to reach under her shirt and bra, groping her breast cruelly as she struggled and cried, trying to pull away from his grasp. He struck her once, twice, across the face, splitting her lip and blackening her eye, and then he leaned forward and kissed her.

***

Magneto was perturbed by Rogue's tardiness the following week. True, he had missed last week's engagement because of his excitement over his rediscovery of his powers, but he had hoped to see her this week to learn whether she, too, had regained her mutation. After waiting nearly 45 minutes, he began standing to depart, and that was when he saw her. She was wearing her usual outfit, an NYU sweatshirt and jeans, but she had added a pair of gloves that were unseasonably warm for the weather. So, her powers were returning.  

His gaze traveled from her hands to her face, and he felt his entire body stiffen as he caught sight of the bruises and cuts decorating her face and neck. She was standing uncertainly in the shade of a tree watching him, and he wondered for a moment how long she had been hovering there. Then he stood and strode swiftly towards her, lifting his bare hand to brush against her cheek and pushing a strand of white hair away from her face.

"What happened?" he asked roughly, grabbing her chin with his bare fingers and noting the slight tingle he felt in response, lifting her face so that her eyes were forced to meet his.

"I was attacked last week," she said quietly, averting her eyes in shame. "A man -- he caught me unaware and tried to rape me."

"Where is he?" Magneto demanded, mind already plotting the creative and painful ways the man could die.

"Dead," she responded, raising her eyes to meet his. He was startled by their steely look. "He leaned down to kiss me, and I...I sucked the life right out of him."

He felt his lips curve into a smile despite his remaining fury over the situation. "Good girl." He was struck by a thought. "You killed him intentionally with your gift? But I just touched you…"

She hesitated, then nodded. "When he touched me, and I saw what he planned to do to me, I knew that I wanted him dead, and I imagined that I was _pulling_ as hard as I could. The next thing I knew, he was a corpse. The police saw that it was obvious self-defense, so I wasn't arrested or anything, but I got kicked out of school. I've been living off my meager savings the past few days."

At that, he took a step back to look at her more critically, noting the threadbare state of her clothing and the way that it hung off her even more than he was accustomed to. He frowned. "Why didn't you come to me?"

She glared at him out of the eye that was not swollen. "When? How? It's not like we've given each other our phone numbers, Erik, and you haven't been here the past few evenings like you used to be." She got a stubborn look on her face. "Besides, I don't need your help. I don't need anyone's help. I'm fine on my own."

Magneto felt the urge to roll his eyes, but restrained himself. "So fine that you're starving to death," he returned. When it looked like she was about to speak, he held up his hand to forestall her words. "Not another word, my dear," he ordered. "You're going to come with me to my apartment to eat a hot meal, and then we are going to figure out what to do with ourselves now that our powers have returned and you appear to have gotten some measure of control over yours."

It was a mark of her desperation that she complied without protest. An hour later, she was full for the first time in a week, and Magneto situated himself in his office to consider their new situation as she took a long, hot shower in his bathroom. When she emerged 45 minutes later dressed in his robe, wet strands of hair curling around her neck, he was struck by how beautiful she was. He couldn't quite keep himself from reaching up to caress her cheek, noting the surprised look in her eyes as he did so. Then he pulled himself away from her to take a seat, watching intently as she settled herself in the chair across from him.

"Have you given any thought as to what you would like to do now, Rogue?" he asked.

She frowned. "A little. My options are limited, however. I could return to the X-Men, but, like I said before, I don't really think I fit in there any more, powers or no powers. I could join the Brotherhood, but I don't have any desire to start killing or threatening humans, even if we are genetically superior to them."

"There is another option," he said slowly, almost unable to believe that he was saying what he was saying. She raised an eyebrow in question. "You could join with me in leading the Brotherhood," he offered.

"Excuse me?" she asked in surprise. "You're offering me some kind of leadership position? And didn't I just say I didn't want to hurt anyone just for being human?"

He smiled slightly at her. "My perspective on certain matters has changed a bit since our brief stint as humans," he said. "I certainly don't like humans, and am extremely glad not to be one, but I do feel some tolerance now for their existence. The Brotherhood will be changing its strategy based on this new perspective. As for your first question…I suppose that I am offering you a leadership position. I don't want you to work for me, Rogue. I want you to work with me."

She considered him for a moment, her brown eyes dark in thought as she twirled a strand of white hair around her finger. In lieu of a verbal reply, she rose from her chair, took several steps toward him, took his hand to urge him to stand, leaned forward, and kissed him firmly on the mouth. He stiffened in shock even as his body traitorously responded to her attentions, pulling himself firmly away from her and setting his hands on his shoulders to hold her away.

"Rogue, this isn't what you want," he told her, trying to keep himself from panting for oxygen as hormones swirled through his veins. "You've recently been through a very traumatic event, and -- "

She interrupted him. "This has nothing to do with that," she informed him indignantly. "I've been wanting to do that for months, but I never dared to try since I thought you'd just laugh at me. When you touched me back in the park, I thought maybe you felt something for me, but when you touched my cheek a few minutes ago, I used my power to feel you a little, and when I realized you were attracted to me, too, I just couldn't help myself." Suddenly she blushed, averting her eyes. "I can go, if you're really horrified by the idea. I didn't mean to attack you or anything, I just -- "

This time, she was the one who was interrupted, as he bowed his head to hers and kissed her passionately in return. She let out a little moan as his lips pressed against hers, then moaned again when his tongue played against her lips, requesting entrance. She parted her lips slightly to let his tongue dance inside, feeling her body melt against his in response, her soft curves pressed deliciously against his lean body and hard erection. He broke his lips from hers to lay light kisses along her neck, smiling as she whimpered in response to his careful touch.

Her hands began to fumble with the buttons on his shirt, and he hastened to help her remove it. He swept her into his arms, unwilling to lose contact with her even for a moment, and carried her into his bedroom, laying her down on his bed and watching as she removed the robe, devouring her naked, lithe body with his eyes. She was flushed both from her own lust for him and from the expression on his face as he watched her.

He quickly divested himself of the rest of his own clothes, then joined her on the bed. They kissed and explored each other for several long, glorious minutes, before he gently slid one finger between her legs. She arched against his touch, whimpering with pleasure as he set up a gentle rhythm. He added another finger, then another, carefully stretching her as his fingers slipped through her wetness. He held himself over her, resting on his forearms on either side of her shoulders, then kissed her again. She spread her legs for him, watching him through eyes glazed with passion, and he entered her slowly, patiently waiting for her to adjust to his size before setting up a quick rhythm. He gazed down on her beautiful face, twisted with pleasure as it was, as he thrust powerfully against her. Her head fell back in pleasure, and he kissed a trail up her neck, sucking hard in one spot to leave his mark on her.

He sped up as he felt them both nearing their release. He came first, calling her mutant name, then continued thrusting into her to help her along. She came moments later, his human name a cry torn from her lips by ecstasy. He collapsed onto the bed next to her, panting, and drew her into his arms, where she curled up against him and fell asleep in his warmth.

She woke up sometime later, still in his arms. "Lead the new and improved Brotherhood with you, eh?" she asked playfully, rubbing her hand lightly against his chest.

"Oh, I think you're the right one for the job," he responded, claiming her lips in a kiss that left them both gasping as his hand found its way down her body to one breast, massaging it lovingly. "I think it's checkmate for me this time," he said, gazing at her nude form appreciatively, triumphantly.

She smiled back at him, then ran her hand through his soft white hair. "Checkmate for us both, I think," she decided. Then she kissed him again, and for a long time after that there were no words.


End file.
